Twitter's Biowarfare Labs

Musk will discover Twitter is not a profitable company and requires regular infusions of "liquidity" with dubious provenance because it's actually laundered Fed money.

It is likely he will mention this in public. 

I am thus a bit puzzled: why aren't they fighting his purchase tooth and nail? Maybe, like 2016, they think the cutouts are secure - that the fix is already in? 

They are in fact secure. Musk could trumpet this stuff from the rooftops and it still wouldn't make a difference. The American voter is sufficiently subservient. The Regime habitually acts as if these things are relevant, though. Much the same way the weird thing isn't that 2020 was defrauded, but that like 2004 wasn't defrauded. 

Maybe they realize that, since Americans are so subservient, control of Twitter is an unnecessary expense? "Thanks Musk; now we don't have to pay off these useless yuppies anymore." However, that's drinking deeply from the 4D chess well.

The only thing you can be 100% sure about is that the real story isn't being told.

Hume's Guillotine, Final Form

Universal morality is a contradiction in terms. Good and evil are only approximately real.

If evil is unrewarding in the long term, you don't avoid it because of morality, you avoid it because it's imprudent. E.g. hard drugs. Costs are bad mmmkay.

If evil is rewarding in the long term, it's not evil. Even if it imposes costs on others, then you can pay off those affected out of the profits of evil. Everyone benefits. Nobody is harmed. Not evil. E.g. waste disposal.

Assuming evil exists, there is no such thing as evil. QED. 

There is no ought from is because there is no ought, period.

What exists is the tension between short and long term. Drugs: good high, long crash. Imprudent. But, worth talking about. The short term is easy to see and the long term more difficult; it's worth reminding yourself and others that the long term is bigger than the short term and thus worth more. 

In the case of short term costs and long term profits, but the costs are borne by others: they will fight back, making the costs higher and higher until you see no profit, and then you won't do it unless you're an idiot. There are in fact no long term profits. Indeed you will likely see this very obvious response and not even attempt it in the first place. Or you will pay them off to let you do it anyway, thus reviving the profits. Edge cases aside, they will charge you the market rate. 

Naturally some try to trick you into letting them impose costs on you, and this approximation of evil is a close approximation. 

It is important not to let them get away with it unless you want to die.

They will try to tell you costs are not costs. Remind them that costs are in fact costs, and any attempt to impose costs will be met with imposing costs right back. Violence, if you will. It is always the case that you can inflict enough damage on someone that their attempt to unilaterally extract value from you becomes unprofitable. The only real question is whether you're a coward or not. 

Even in the case they're too stupid to acknowledge deterrance, that means they are stupid and weak. As long as you're not totally pathetic you will be able to exploit their stupidity to get them killed or otherwise neutralized. 

In a sense there's a pseudo-ought. If you value a thing, there is some action that leads to you getting that thing, and some actions that don't. You ought to choose the actions that work, not the actions that don't. A rather degenerate [ought]. Again, merely a subset of prudence. Be wise, not foolish. If you were foolish and it worked out for you, it wasn't foolish; if you were wise and it didn't, it wasn't wise. Trying to be "moral" per se isn't wise.

Weapons of the Hand vs. Weapons of the Mind

Pre-script: this is a post about meta-thinking. Recognize a weapon by its purpose, not whether it's gun-shaped. 

Anything you can use to defeat your enemy is a weapon. The environment, social rules, the law, words or silence, their own friends, time itself - all weapons. At least, weapons as and when the opportunity to use them as such arises. 

A true warrior erases the distinction between warrior and scholar caste. All of Reality is a potential weapon, and wisdom & training is required to grasp things in such a wide scope. (P.S. As such, being a warrior is one way of training scholarship.) Truth is the deadliest.

Naturally artifacts specifically designed to be weapons are particularly good at defeating your enemies. However, even non-thinkers are aware of this. Even a mindless drone will work out that they need a bullet-proof vest if you shoot enough of their acquaintances. The attack draws forth the defence. The mind, then, becomes the ultimate weapon. If you can grasp more weapons in the mind than they can, then they are unable to defend themselves. You will always have an avenue of attack.  

Further, artifacts cost money whereas the environment happens by itself. If you allow the world to grant you weapons, you don't need to desperately seize or hold manmade weapons. If offence is needed, offence will be provided. Opportunity is as boundless as time.

P.P.S. Yet another reason honourable cooperation is important. Perfect security is impossible. Anything man can make, man can unmake. Allegorically, be tamper-evident, not tamper-proof. If someone wishes to tamper with your property, convince them it's more profitable not to - and catch them if they're trying to scam you. Likewise, the death sentence is critical. If someone refuses to abjure deviance, they must be deviated right off the mortal coil.

Because the mind is the greatest weapon, it behooves the highest warriors to attack the mind directly. Destroy their ability to want to attack you. Make them underestimate you. Make them think you're not a threat. Make them think you don't exist. The fate of a true warrior's enemy is to drown in delusion. 

They're stupid enough to want to be an enemy instead of a cooperator. Your mind is guaranteed to be superior to theirs. Accept this advantage, exploit it, and crush them when and however is convenient for you. 

If "God" is a metaphor for Reality in the widest possible view, then the Alpha and Omega of weapons is piety. A truly sacrosanct zone will not be attacked. The profanity from which the conflict arises makes them weak, unable to defend against it. In a material sense, the sacrosanct security will not be tested at all, because its enemies cannot conceive of it as an opponent. Security cannot be perfect, but perhaps meta-security can be.

Extreme Efficiency and Soul Death

Some artifacts are "useful," and some are mere art. Being "useful" means the building of such things allows you to build more of them, whereas an art piece doesn't let you afford any art you couldn't already afford. 

If you obsess about making all your artifacts useful, you become useless. Extrinsic value and intrinsic value diverge. You make things that are valuable because they make more of themselves, but 0 * ∞ is zero. You have an endless supply of something that serves no purpose. Rather than accruing profits, you have wasted your labour.

When spending time on a "useful" device or technique, it must always be subordinated to "useless" ends. The point of money isn't actually to be accumulated. The point, ultimately, is to spend it. Once creating the "useful" artifact conflicts with spending the money, it is costing more than you're gaining. 

Work to buy leisure. The more leisure the work can purchase, the more profitable the work is. Keep in mind that youthful years tend to be worth more than elder years. Discount future profits to taste. 

Leisure doesn't have to be so-called unproductive, but it does have to be something you would do without being paid for, whether you can get paid for it or not. Indeed the work-leisure dichotomy seems like yet another trap.

Neural Emotion Algorithm & Armed Peasants

Emotions are checked in some order. If an emotion is sufficiently excited, the rest of the list is ignored. For peasants, the emotion at the top is always fear.

When a non-peasant sees someone with a gun, they may think, "Ah, he has a gun, good for him I guess." Unless you were planning on antagonizing him, it's of little consequence.

When a peasant sees someone with a gun, they are afraid of the gun. And that's it. They are consumed by fear of the gun. They'll find themselves unable to appreciate anything else until the gun is removed from their perceptible environs.

This is why peasants like kittens. You can't possibly be afraid of a kitten. They can feel something other than fear in the presence of nothing but kittens, which is a nice change for them. 

This effect is likely enhanced by living in democratic times. The local norm is cowardice. Bravery is enviable, so even the few individuals who are capable of it know better than to openly display any. The peasant's role models all act like cowards. He is never shown how the self-secure act; he is not genuinely aware that non-cowardice is an option. At best courage is a distant, abstract hypothetical vagueness. 

This is particular bad when the peasant himself is holding the gun. He's more afraid of his own tools than he is of the attacker. Not the best idea to give a coward a deadly weapon. The irrationality of this is obvious even to the peasant themselves, and the strain is apt to drive them nuts. Even if they manage to be strategically stupid and forget to be afraid of the weapon, they're still likely to panic due to being a coward who is under attack.

Perhaps it is sociologically prudent to discourage armament in democratic times. Only those who are willing to brave the frowns will arm themselves, ensuring few cowards adopt the habit.

"Communism creates enormous destruction while failing to advance at all towards equality. That’s kind of why communism sucks so much."
(Who said it?)

Democracy creates enormous destruction while failing to create a single iota of freedom. That's kind of why democracy sucks so much.

Example of De-Legitimization and Security

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/27872/confessions-of-the-magpie-wizard/chapter/859741/book-5-chapter-13-wherein-a-slow-speed-catfight

“Typical,” said Mariko. “The Corps took over somebody’s business and turned it into a den of lies.”

“I take it you don’t approve of Heida’s methods?”

“How could I? She’s conning these people and scaring them with monsters that don’t even exist!”

[...]

“Then let’s promise to not take the easy way out. We’ll see what we can really do to help people. No taking shortcuts to put on a good show.”

“Hm,” I said, scratching my chin in contemplation. “I don’t think our hostess will care for that. She is our superior, after all.”

“When we have a choice, then,” she said. “Please? For me? I couldn’t look myself in the mirror otherwise.”

Mariko wants to force Heida to tell the truth: “Should we tell Mr. Maki? Maybe the Headmaster?” This is both unnecessary and dishonourable. 

[Dishonourable] because it isn't a purchase or a war. Mariko is allegedly a pacifist, but isn't above threatening someone to get what she wants, as long as it's an "authority" doing the threatening on her behalf. Wants someone to wage war as long as it doesn't look like war. Typical pacifism.

Unnecessary because Mariko can't be fired for disagreeing with her superior in public. Doesn't have to even call it out as a lie - she can simply refuse to play along. "I don't see any evidence such a monster exists." Heida will get angry, but she's in a bind - either she allows Mariko to puncture the lies, or she removes Mariko from the situation where she has to play along with lies...which plays to Mariko's pacifism and isn't reasonably possible.

In these cases, the opportunity to revoke your consent from the illegitimate authority always exists. The only question is whether you take the opportunity. Whether you manifest your ideas as action, or discredit your own ideas with inaction.

Mariko has already won. It's merely a question of whether she accepts victory or not.

I personally have lost every shred of patience for those who make excuses. As we can see, Mariko is rejecting victory - she wants to play along with the superstitious peasants who she knows and accepts are superstitious. Novel authors feel obligated to uphold the local mores, after all.

Rectification of Names: Time is Boundless

The term "temporal" is supposed to refer to time-bound entities. 

Problem: time is infinite and unending. What does infinity look like in real life? It looks like Time. 

Time isn't a boundary. Time is permission. Time is permission to exist; permission to act. Time is omnipotence. All things that can be done require time to be done.

The "eternal" entities are those which don't exist. No matter how imperfect temporal entities are, they are superior to those that don't count as [are]. 

Don't confuse Time with Death just because you get old. That's on you, not Death. If you blame Time, you're saying you wish you weren't born at all. Set Time allotment = 0. Okay, fine, but then why are you mad at Death for fixing the mistake, liar?